Sometimes it is inconvenient for a person to respond to communications or alerts, such as calls, emails, texts, notifications, or other reminders, at the time the person becomes aware of the event. For example, a user may receive a notification of a missed call when it is inconvenient for the user to return the call and in so doing dismiss the notification. Later when it is convenient, the user does not remember to respond because the notification was dismissed. Moreover, because some missed communication events are more urgent than others, a user may desire to be reminded about those missed events sooner, even when it is not as convenient to respond because of their importance. This is particularly so for missed events associated with certain contacts or other entities determined to be more important based on typical user response patterns to those entities.